Genevieve McRae was a source of amusement to just about anyone who knew her, her family says.
“She was so quirky,” said son Michael McRae, 40, of Hillsboro. “She’d do something and everybody would start laughing while she was just looking around, going, ‘Whaaaaa?’
“She was a social butterfly and the life of the party, whether she meant to be or not.”
Mrs. McRae’s unusual nickname came from her oldest grandchild, Rachel.
“We were showing her a picture of mom and my dad, who had just died,” Michael said. “We told her it was Maw Maw and Pa Pa and all she took away from it was the Pa Pa part. So my mom has been Pa Pa to everybody since, even my friends.”
Mrs. McRae died Nov. 6 at 79 of complications from pneumonia.
She grew up in De Soto and moved to St. Louis after her 1960 graduation to work an administrative job at Barnes Hospital.
“One of the surgeons asked if she wanted a nose job and she said, ‘Sure!’” said daughter Christine “Chris” Denby, 58, of Hillsboro. “While she was still all bandaged up, she was cruising on Lindbergh (Boulevard) and met my dad in his ’62 Impala.”
Kenneth McRae drove that car when he took his new girlfriend to meet his extended family at their Big River cabin.
“Two cousins rode back to town with them,” Chris said. “They got to the intersection of Hwy. Y and Hwy. 21 and the car just stops. He gets out, then comes back and plonks this car part down on the front seat. ‘It’s fine, we’re good,’ he says, then drives in reverse all the way to their house on Second Street.”
The McRaes were married in 1964 and settled in Florissant, where they welcomed Chris and Kenneth. They moved to Hillsboro in 1973 and built a house, welcoming Kathleen in 1974 and Michael in 1982.
After getting a German shepherd, the McRaes got involved with training and showing the breed.
“Mom did the obedience side, and my dad did the track-and-find things,” Chris said. “Later she worked as an obedience trainer for the Humane Society in St. Louis.”
She trained her children as well.
“She definitely was the disciplinarian of the family,” Michael said.
“Dad was the softie and Mom ruled the roost,” his sister agreed.
The McRaes were active members of Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Hillsboro.
“Fish fries, picnics, whatever – they were always in the middle of it,” Michael said.
The family enjoyed traveling, mostly long car trips to places like Yellowstone National Park.
“I was maybe 2 and had these shirts with silky tag labels on them that I’d run between my fingers when I was going to sleep,” Michael said. “We’re out in the Black Hills, and I left one at a KOA or someplace. Mom and Dad turned around and drove 75 miles back to get my shirt.
“It speaks volumes about who they were – they’d do anything for their kids.”
They also enjoyed camping, spending summers and holidays at Meramec Springs.
Another fun pastime was playing cards with friends.
“They’d play poker, and we’d fall asleep to records going and the sound of them talking and laughing,” Chris said. “Now we play, and it’s our kids falling asleep.”
In the 1980s and’90s, Mrs. McRae gave ceramics classes in the basement of her home.
“She had a kiln down there,” Michael said. “She had a group of ladies who came every week, and my dad even got into it.”
After her husband’s death in 1996, Mrs. McRae started a before- and after-school care program at Good Shepherd.
“I was in about seventh grade when she started the latchkey program,” Michael said. “She did that for probably 10 years.”
Mrs. McRae taught her young charges one of her favorite pastimes.
“She loved poker and she taught them to play,” Michael said. “The latchkey program was in the basement, so I called it the underground poker ring.”
Mrs. McRae had a bit of an organizational problem, her children say.
“Mom would buy gift cards and hand them out for birthdays, Christmas, thank yous,” Chris said. “The trouble was, she’d sometimes mix used cards in with the new ones.”
Michael once got an unpleasant surprise at a store.
“I got to the register and my gift card had 97 cents on it,” he said. “The clerk said, ‘You poor thing.’”
Mrs. McRae bowled on a women’s league at Quonset Lanes in Crystal City for many years.
“Every Wednesday, Mom and her best friend, Janet Haselhorst, went,” Michael said. “It was bowling, Aldi, lunch, Walmart and home in time for Mom to do the latchkey thing after school.”
Mrs. McRae had struggled with the onset of Alzheimer’s over the last few years. She contracted pneumonia, which caused fluid to build up around her heart. She spent a week in the hospital and died surrounded by family.
“The doctors said she wasn’t a candidate for heart surgery, and it was unlikely she would get better,” Chris said. “She still knew who we were, but we think she would have continued to decline. It was almost a relief.”
Chris said the church was full for her mother’s funeral Mass.
“I was surprised so many people took off work to go,” she said. “But then, my mom was such a fun, free spirit. She touched so many people.”
“Life Story,” posted Saturdays on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.